iText Software’s programmable libraries are used all over the world by companies and organizations to generate and edit PDF documents, often at high volumes. With the most recent iteration of its platform, iText 7, you get the opportunity to automate your invoicing process to a large degree, thanks to pdfInvoice.

PDF invoices with extra horsepower

The German ZUGFeRD (an acronym that’s a pun on the German word for “draft horse”) standard makes it possible to create invoices that can be easily understood by both humans (PDF) and machines (XML). The benefit of this dual approach is that exchange invoice data with PDF. You can process large quantities of invoices programmatically by machine, but allow for human interaction with your customers and employees. Invoices using this standard also can be read by any software platform, which makes its easily shareable with all of your invoice stakeholders. Having a single invoice with dual purpose does not require any prior software investments or ERP system overhauls and it is completely sector-agnostic. This cuts significant time when sending, filling in and signing invoices.

PDF as your magic box

IText’s pdfInvoice add-on makes it possible for you to create this type of invoice. Your PDF packages come carrying XML data that can be read by most modern computing devices, and are structured along the ISO guidelines of PDF/A-3, meaning that it adheres to the archiving standard to be readable for the future, but allows for non-adhering documents to be attached (the XML file).This means that the data you fill out on the invoice can be rendered readable to programs and vice versa.